Forum

So, I've reached a place in my campaign where my players have begun actually using the artifacts from the Ravens Purge. They've realized the power of the artifacts are well worth the cost and risk of drawing attention to them. Last night they "ruined" a well thought out encounter by using the crown and thereby negating a great part of the story I'd planned for them. A story I thought would have been much interesting for all of us, both me and my players. This made me reevaluate the Stanengist. As per written, the crown, with 3 gems in it, cast Dispel Magic at D6 power level if magic targets the wearer or within NEAR. This was quite powerful in the first print of the game but with the rules regarding magic using NPCs in the second print, the D6 power level is even more powerful. And at no cost of willpower. And not only once a day as for most magic items. As I read the rules, it's a bit ambiguity as to whether you should just dispel D6 power levels from incoming spells or if you should roll for overcharge/magic mishap, since it's the crown (actually the elfs?) casting the spell and not the wearer. Not being forced to roll for overcharge/mishap and with most NPC magic users being able to cast power level 1 - 3 spells practically nullify the use of magic users as an enemy in encounters. I don't mind my players having powerful artifacts, since they often come with a drawback. However, I still want some sense of risk to the PCs. Pretty much like the ongoing discussions about the talents lucky/executioner.
I've been thinking of altering the power level to D3 or D4 and also to roll for overcharge/mishap but with drawbacks mainly affecting the crown if it's fitting the narrative.

What are your thoughts about this? I'd love to hear how the rest of you have played this.

Well first, nothing is ruined. The players do what they do and the story evolves. This is why I don't "plan" events within a story. It's not a book they are reading it's a story you all tell together. They cannot ruin it, they are helping to write it.

That being said, good. The more powerful the artifact the more the consequences. They now realize how powerful the artifacts are? Start raising their reputation. It's time for various factions to start hunting them down. The crown does nothing to save them from a bunch of orks with swords or horsemen in service to zeterome(?).

I started the Raven's Purge campaign with my daughters and their friends yesterday and they received the Stanengist crown from start. That is, a player character picked it up from a battle scene with no survivors and doesn't really know what it is, but he understands that powerful people would like to have it and keeps it hidden. (He's a halfling thief by profession and already keeps on the move from people looking for him). I don't see it as a big problem that magic doesn't work in their vicinity at this early stage (there are no magicians or druids in the group) and will take it from there. Any magician that fails magic will know that something powerful is in play here and get curious.

Incidently, the party went to the Grindbone village and already are entangled in the local politics there. We had a great scene with someone challenging the bard Mahinniver in darts and the bard agreed if the prize was for the winner to pierce the opponent's hand with a dart. The party eagerly took bets, but everyone put their money on the player character since they knew that Mahinniver wouldn't even try to win. So the group realized that they probably would owe a lot of thugs money and tried to weasel out, which didn't work. It ended with Misela Ferrumar paying their debts, demanding to see them in the morning for a repayment service.

The two older charachters are set upp to be abducted to Eye of the Rose, since they will accompany the Somaya sisters out in the woods tomorrow morning to learn healing skills. I will probably give the players temporary characters until the party reunites if they get abducted.

Update: The Stanengist Crown is now in the hands of orch empress Soria. The previous owner has been bought off and replaced by a con man played by the same player(well OK, half a con man, since it's a halfling) to see if the group comes upp with any of the missing stones. This twist was the player's idea, and I'll run with it for the moment, but he obviously stands a risk of being exposed. He immediately got a surprise when the empress ordered him beaten to a pulp by her guards in order to be rendered unrecognizable for his friends and let him heal with some disfiguring scars.

Thank you for taking your time answering me.
I'm sorry if I was a bit unclear. I do not have a problem with my PCs being powerful and I don't have a problem altering my story as they move along. After all, we've been playing weekly games for a year and a half and so far, none of my PCs has died. They usually have a great sense of urgency about the various missions and tend to travel the map back and forth but now a days they've accumulated enough talents, skill and gear to barely bother to take the time off to train, resulting in some of them having som 20 to 50 experience points yet to invest. They're powerful enough to not need to bother about that, most of the time. Since they value their characters, they tend to take the careful approach and more often than not, they try to manipulate, sneak or even run away instead of resulting to combat. They seldom have any problem destroying what ever opposition they encounter if they are forced to engage in combat but they are always on their toes when rolls are made because they know of the odd chance an opponent gets a lucky shot. With Stanengist however, I don't even have to roll a single die because of the powerful Dispel Magic spell and they quickly picked up on that. I don't mind them being powerful but I'd still want them to feel there's at least some chance that a powerful mage could pose a threat to them.

I figured the crown was written with the rules of the first print in mind, where the power limit of an NPC mage was determined by your (the GM) pool of willpower, not the more streamlined rules of the second print, where an NPC mage (with the exception of the extremely powerful ones) can cast power level 1 - 3 each round. Therefor I was curious as how others had handled this. What are your thought on this? How do you handle overcharge/mishap or are you allowing this powerful Dispel Magic an infinite number of times each combat without the risk of mishap or cost of WP/attribute/condition? It's such a different take, compared to most other artifacts in terms of cost/benefit. I'm just curious since I want my players to continue feeling engaged and concerned with their PCs. And for my players, I know the sense of danger is a key part of that.

My players don't use the crown. They did hide it in their fortress. Why? Because it's a treasure, and the dispel works against them too! That's the drawback! They can't use a spell at near distance from the crown. But maybe you don't have a spellcaster in your pc team?

Nevertheless, it's a good point about the rules. It depends on the game you want with them. I will think about it for my campaign.

I think you make a good point that the d6 could be too high in 2nd edition and a d3 would probably be a better way to go. Alternatively, it is a d6 vs pcs and d3 vs npcs?

Or you ignore the rule about NPCs being limited to their rank and occasionally have a powerful magician with a WP pool throw a PL5 spell at them.

I think you make a good point that the d6 could be too high in 2nd edition and a d3 would probably be a better way to go. Alternatively, it is a d6 vs pcs and d3 vs npcs?

Or you ignore the rule about NPCs being limited to their rank and occasionally have a powerful magician with a WP pool throw a PL5 spell at them.

Thanks for your reply.
I’m leaning towards making it a d3 at the moment but haven’t made my mind up just yet.

A reply to an old post, but the rules state: 'The crown Stanengist gives its wearer different effects.' So my interpretation is that the magic is only active when someone actually wears the crown on their head.

Walking around with an intricate crown adorned with gemstones - elven rubies, no less - would undoubtedly draw a lot of attention to the party. Not just from the key players, but from all sorts of individuals. And if hose forces won't succeed in securing the crown the first time - why not form a (perhaps uneasy) alliance with other groups and try again? That crown certainly looks tempting.